


Animalia

by Binario



Category: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (Cartoon)
Genre: Benson would very much like his friends to start making sense please, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Season 2, Sibling Bonding, ish, roadtrips and weird stuff galore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25216972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Binario/pseuds/Binario
Summary: In which Benson becomes an unwilling zoologist and he really should consider starting up a naturalist’s journal.
Relationships: Kipo Oak & Benson & Wolf & Dave & Mandu
Comments: 9
Kudos: 76





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literally just finished Heroes on Fire and was overtaken by the urge to write. something. for. this. fandom.
> 
> Probably will make it a series of drabbles. We’ll see.

Benson loves his friends.

He does, really. He really, really does. After a whole life of just surviving with Dave, scouring buildings and escaping outraged mutes, being able to just sit down and relax with people he cares about feels like a dream. It’s true that he wasn’t very sold on the whole teaming up idea from the get-go, but he’s so glad that he chose to stay with this exasperating new family of his.

It’s just that he’s starting to feel like the outsider of their little group.

Dave is like the sibling he never had. Granted, sometimes he has to take care of baby Dave, mostly during times in which taking care of a baby is possibly the most challenging thing in the world, but hey, no biggie. He’s grown accustomed to that particular bizarre event in his life. Do something enough times in your life and it becomes a habit. At least that’s what that one cassette labeled “self-help” had said. He had thrown it away as soon as he realized that there was no music involved, but that phrase stuck with him for some reason.

Kipo is the cool baby sister that always gives him heart attacks. Way before her mute awakening, Benson had seen her, stars in her eyes and fingers poking at plants she _really shouldn’t touch if she wants to keep her fingers intact_ and had felt a sudden fierce conviction that he would fight a deathstalker for this girl. It had floored him, left him reeling for weeks. He had eventually confided in Dave, who had looked at him weirdly and remarked that maybe so much sugar is not doing favors for his mental stability. Joke’s on him, though. After the Mega Monkey incident, when they were all setting up camp to finally unwind after such an action-packed week, Dave had looked at Kipo babbling about monkeys and their taxonomy, met his eyes from across the campfire and shared a look full of understanding.

Mandu is cute and all. Maybe he didn’t use to have any strong feelings about the pig Mute, but damn if she didn’t worm her way into his heart. Even though Benson has lived his whole life up in the surface, hanging out with an obviously sapient Mute that couldn’t speak had thrown him off for a while. It’s all cool now, though. And Mandu is a surprisingly good pillow if he asks nicely.

Wolf is…Wolf. Sharp and biting, exceedingly difficult to befriend and a terrible conversationalist. But she’s a girl that spend most of her life doubting everyone around her, and oh if that doesn’t make Benson even more determined to make her feel welcome with them. He feels incredibly elated whenever she lowers her guard and allows herself to be the little girl that she actually is. Dave calls him a bleeding heart but what does that Mute know, anyway?

He’s basically adopted himself little siblings that could kill him. He’s not sure what to think about that.

When Kipo started with her Mega Jaguar thing, Benson didn’t think much about it. _Well_ , not exactly. He did freak out a little bit, but can anyone really blame him? A human shapeshifter with a bounty on her head. And she’s been up in the surface for _less than a month_. How can she be such a danger magnet?

He didn’t have any personal feelings about Kipo’s slow transformation besides overall worry for her, but when the _incidents_ started to happen…

\---

Supply scouting is honestly one of the best chores that Benson can be told to do. It’s amazing to search abandoned shops from a bygone era. Who knows what new gadgets he might discover? That’s how he found his music, and life has never been the same since then.

He tosses what appears to be a magazine. The colors are way too faded to make out the cover page, but he thinks it might be something to do with cats. He searches the storage area once more, turning empty boxes on their sides just in case he’s missing something, and sighs when they disappoint him by continuing to be empty.

Benson walks back towards the main store, dusting his pants and searching the place to ask Kipo if she had found anything when he stops. He blinks in confusion, going as far as to rub his eyes hoping that will force reality to make sense again, but when he looks back at the ruined store nothing changes.

She’s perched on the cluttered counter, squatting like she’s not even realized how uncomfortable that posture must be. She looks like Kipo always does save for the jaguar eyes, which remain focused on the scattered bottles in front of her. It’s slightly strange, but Benson has come to accept that travelling with this group has created two new concepts of strange: “weird” strange and “that’s something that could possibly kill us” strange. Whatever Kipo is doing right now seems harmless enough, so Benson mentally catalogues it under the weird strange category and moves on.

“Aside from a lot of dust, there’s nothing back there. Seems the place is a bust,” Benson sighs as he leans against the counter. Kipo twitches but never breaks her staring contest with the inanimate objects.

“Oookay.” Benson is getting slightly concerned. Shouldn’t her cat pupils be slits and not rounded? “Uh, Kipo? Found anything interesting?”

Instead of answering, Kipo slowly stretches out a hand. Benson is so bewildered by the intensity behind the action that he just kind of stands there and stares dumbly. Kipo’s fingers grace the bottle closest to her and she just…swats it. Right across the room. Past the rotting shelves and empty cans. The bottle flies in a sad arc and explodes against the opposite wall, spilling the slightly reddish liquid all over the peeling wallpaper.

Kipo blinks and jumps down from the table, stretching her arms over her head like she hadn’t just _done that_. “Oh, hey Benson! Found anything?”

“Um, Kipo, what–”

“I found a dictionary! How cool is that! Did you know that back in my borrow, my dad and I collected different editions for fun? I think it’s super cool that there was a whole organization that took decisions on whether or not a word qualifies as a ‘word’ in a language. Oh! Imagine if we found a dictionary for a _different language_. That would be a dream come true.”

Needless to say, Benson never got a word in for the rest of the day. Once Kipo starts monologuing, there’s not much that can be done to stop her. Benson discards the whole incident as a fluke, and the whole event is soon buried under all of the worries of fleeing from Scarlemagne and finding Kipo’s dad.

When he goes out on a scouting mission with Wolf, however, it becomes evident how he shouldn’t have hurried to turn a blind eye on the issue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I see all of the Kipo is an actual cat fics and I raise you: Benson is an exasperated older sibling to a hyper cat, a disgruntled puppy, a bug that makes bad life choices and Mandu, who is a good girl.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the love towards my little drabbles!

Calling it ‘setting up camp’ is a pretty big exaggeration for what they actually do. After they’ve traveled a considerable distance, spent _at least_ an hour badgering Wolf until she finally relents, and then spending an additional hour looking for a place that she deems acceptable, no one’s really in the mood to set up anything.

Anyone but Kipo, that is.

“Do you think that this is a condiment? It smells like one.” To prove her observation in what must certainly be one of the steps of the scientific process she keeps bringing up whenever they find anything even remotely interesting, Kipo sticks a finger in the jar she’s found and sniffs at it suspiciously.

And then eats it, because she has no sense of self-preservation.

“What do you think are the chances she poisons us with the food?” he asks Wolf. Sitting by the fire, Kipo offers the jar to a very skeptical Mandu. Mandu who never turns down food. Yeah, they’re going to die tonight, aren’t they?

“You drink canned sodas from who knows when,” Wolf deadpans at him. Touché.

“Hey, guys!” They turn back towards Kipo, who holds the jar out towards them. “Want to be my tasters?”

They look at the offered jar, down to Mandu’s disgusted face, back at each other and experiment a sudden moment of absolute clarity pass between them.

“Can’t, we are patrolling.”

“Sorry Kipo, gotta make sure no one’s around. But hey, I’m sure Dave will be glad to help you!”

Dave shoots him a glare that promises to murder him in his sleep.

Kipo lights up immediately, turning to Dave and offering the jar. Bensons doesn’t know what happens next, as Wolf latches on to his wrist and drags him out of their temporary campsite.

The night is clear, the stars shining down from a moonless sky. They stuck to the periphery when finding a place to rest, no use risking getting discovered by whomever rules this place, and thus they walk through both abandoned buildings and the budding forest. It is quite impressive how nature steadily reclaims the fallen cities. That’s not a thought he would have had a month ago, but it goes to prove how much their resident burrow girl is rubbing off on him.

Benson turns from the sights to try starting up a conversation with his companion but finds his surroundings suspiciously Wolf-free. He looks back the way they came and sure enough, there’s Wolf standing still in the middle of the road. She has her staff pointing downwards but the fingers on the handle twitch sporadically. Benson draws closer slowly. If there’s one thing he’s learned while traveling, it is not to spook the twitchy, poison-staff wielding girl.

“Wolf,” he whispers once he’s close enough. “What’s out there?”

Wolf jerks a shoulder up and down in what appears to be an unconscious reflex. She surveys the tree line carefully and frowns. “I swear I heard something.”

Benson follows her gaze but can’t make out anything amongst the shadows. “Well, it might have been a glow-owl. They like to hunt in the cities.”

“Yeah,” she concedes, but her tone still sounds skeptical. “Let’s just move on.”

They stick to the path without any other suspicious sounds. Bensons tries once more to start a conversation but at best gets snapped answers. Wolf keeps glancing distrustfully at every alley they pass, fingers curling and uncurling over her staff. It’s making him really nervous the more it continues.

When they finally decide to head back, it’s Benson that freezes in the middle of the road. From somewhere nearby, the unmistakable sound of someone kicking a glass bottle pervades the silence. Wolf immediately gets in front of him, pointing the red stinger threateningly towards the alleys.

He hears the clicking of claws behind him. Benson whips around, heart trying to jackhammer its way out of his ribcage. Standing placidly under a spotlight is a white wolf Mute, her purple eyes evidently curious. She looks nonthreateningly enough, but Benson’s not about to trust some random Mute that appears out of thin air and who might have been following them for a while.

Wolf raises her staff defiantly, staring unblinkingly at her. “Get lost,” she snarls.

The Mute’s ears go flat against her head, her tail curling over her leg, and takes a hesitant step backwards. Wolf jerks the staff forward, shoulders hitching up to… honestly, Benson’s not quite sure as to what she’s trying to do. Intimidate her?

Following some rule that Benson is very sure he’s ignorant to, the Mute drops her gaze to the ground and lets out a soft whine. Without any words, she turns around and disappears off into the night. Okay then.

“What just happened?”

Wolf glares some more in the direction of the Mute and snorts, turning around to lead the way back. She’s no longer twitchy, Benson notes.

“It’s a moonless night and she’s packless,” Wolf says as if that explains anything. “Don’t trust wolves in moonless nights.”

“I don’t trust anyone that materializes out of nowhere,” he says. “But what did she want?”

Wolf shrugs and flicks her wrist. Benson follows the movement and mentally places it in a growing list of _What is happening._

“Do you think she’ll come back?” he wonders. “Because then we should probably move the camp.”

Wolf shakes her head. “No, we’re good. She won’t bother us anymore.”

She sounds so certain and Benson does trust her, so he decides not to push for answers for the moment.

They get back to the camp without any other issues and arrive just in time for Kipo to shove a bowl of… something in their hands. It smells strongly of whatever was in the jar. Benson doesn’t want to eat it, but they can’t just waste food and Kipo’s looking at them expectantly and, well…

He takes a spoonful and doesn’t even thinks as he shoves it in his mouth. It’s actually surprisingly good.

“Not bad,” comments Wolf with the spoon still sticking out of her mouth. Kipo beams at them and goes to hug Wolf, who grunts and moves out of her reach. She rolls her eyes, but Benson catches the small circle she does with her shoulders.

It definitely means something, he decides. If he thinks back to the past month, there might have been instances when he saw her do some of her shoulder movements and thought them weird. It’s not like he remembers them well; thinking something weird and actually sitting down to think _woah, that’s some strange stuff, wonder why she does that_ are two very different things. He could try to ask her directly, but Wolf rarely reacts positively to questions about herself. Specially if they might be intrusive stuff. How does he know if it’s going to be intrusive stuff? She must be doing that since she was very little, given by the ease and apparent unconscious nature of the motion. It looks more like a reflex, if anything.

He’s going to be losing sleep over this, isn’t he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wanted to go dark on me and I had to force it back on track. Still diverging a tad too much from the general mood of the story for my liking, but I promise it won't go like that in the future.

**Author's Note:**

> I see all of the Kipo is an actual cat fics and I raise you: Benson is an exasperated older sibling to a hyper cat, a disgruntled puppy, a bug that makes bad life choices and Mandu, who is a good girl.


End file.
